Dear Dr. Steingraber,
     I appreciate your taking the time and effort to help educate all of us
on LactNet about the issues of breast milk contamination.  I have a couple
of questions for you.  Since the first child breastfed by a mother gets the
highest dose of whatever toxins she passes along, would one then expect
higher rates of health problems due to the contaminants (cancer, or
whatever) in first-born/first-breastfed children in a family, compared to
later siblings?  Since many contaminants are passed along via the placenta,
does this mean that the first-born child gets the biggest share of these as
well as the biggest share from the breast milk?  Is there a significant
difference between, say, the first-born/first-breastfed and the
third-born/second-breastfed in terms of toxic load?  Has anyone ever
researched these specific questions, or do they not make any sense?
     Also, I still don't understand something else.  According to my
interpretation of what you've posted, different things happen in lactating
women vs. non-lactating women.  In a lactating woman, when the woman's body
fat is metabolized for lactation, the contaminants are mobilized out of the
fat and into the bloodstream and thence into the breast milk and passed on
to the baby.  In a non-lactating woman, when the woman's body fat is
metabolized by dieting/exercise, the contaminants are mobilized out of the
fat and into the bloodstream, but then re-deposited in other fat elsewhere
in the body, rather than being filtered out by the kidneys into the urine.
Are the kidneys incapable of filtering these bloodstream contaminants out?
Why?


Kathy Dettwyler



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